In the printing industry, there are many instances where a replaceable ink pad is beneficial as opposed to an ink pad to which ink is periodically supplied mechanically. Many printers have a sump that stores ink and a pump that will drive the ink from the sump through appropriate passages to a inking pad that will transfer ink to a print head or dye. The drawback of an ink supplying system is that it requires space and maintenance and has a measure of high cost associated with it.
Another type of ink pad is one which is initially charged with ink and replaced after the ink has become exhausted. Replaceable ink pads have been used previously in printers; however, such prior ink pads were deficient in terms of the number of prints that could be produced using such replaceable ink pads. Prior ink pads could produce up to 3,000 printing cycles, but this is not sufficient for most printing requirements. Clearly, it would be advantageous to provide a replaceable ink pad that has characteristics so that at least 5,000 print cycles can be achieved before replacement is required.